Falling Up
by StopTheWorldImGettingDizzy
Summary: VioletCooper with a side of Pete. Post-2x2 Feedback appreciated. Have fun; I did!


Knocking. There was knocking. Groggily, Pete rolled over and cracked open his eyes. 1:30 AM. He groaned and swung his feet in the general direction of the edge of the bed. The knocking got louder. "Coming," he mumbled. Down the stairs, across the hall, open the door.

Whatever he expected to see, it was not a frazzled-looking Violet Turner with one hand raised mid-pound and the other swiping ferociously at watery eyes.

"Violet?"

"Hi," she hiccupped.

"Hi… are you okay?" He was pretty sure she was trying to give him a sarcastic, exasperated look, but she wasn't quite carrying it off, and he saw her bottom lip tremble. "Hey, hey, Violet. Hey, come on in." He opened the door wider and she ducked under his arm and wandered inside.

Pete resigned himself to a night without sleep and turned around to find Violet standing in the center of his living room looking lost. She looked at him and seemed to register the sweatpants, t-shirt, and tousled hair. "I woke you up."

"Don't worry about it."

"No, I woke you, I'm sorry. God, what time is it? Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I'll leave." She tried to move past him but he blocked her, and she wound up with her forehead pressed into his sternum. He could hear ragged rushes of air as she struggled to keep her breathing even, and this was enough to snap him into doctor-mode.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna sit down, and you're gonna cry if you need to while I go make us some coffee. Okay?" She nodded into his shirt, and he patted her slightly awkwardly on the shoulder before guiding her to the couch and pushing her gently down. "I'll be back in a minute." Violet nodded again, and as he headed for the kitchen he saw her draw her knees against her chest and wrap her arms around them, shivering.

Pete was concerned. It was obvious that Violet had been having a hard time with the turmoil facing the practice, and she had experienced a miniature breakdown on the defatillator earlier today, but somehow it didn't seem likely that she was here because of work. Plus, why was she _here_, with him? There was no doubt that Pete valued the comfortable companionship he and Violet sporadically shared, but normally it would not be his doorstep she showed up on in tears in the middle of the night. Normally, it would be Cooper's.

Cooper. Bingo. _The practice is going to hell, and Cooper is lying to me._ Of course this was about Cooper. It had to be. Even Pete had noticed the unusual distance between the winsome twosome lately, but he hadn't given it much thought until tonight. All of a sudden, everything made a whole lot more sense.

Pete returned with two mugs of coffee to find Violet dry-eyed but sniffly, her arms and legs wrapped around a cushion. He placed her mug on the table in front of her and retreated to his chair, waiting patiently for her to talk. When she didn't, he cleared his throat.

"Uh… Violet? Would you like to tell me what's wrong?"

She looked at him. "Okay."

He raised his eyebrows, prompting her. She hugged the cushion tighter.

"I need advice. And normally I would go to Cooper, but I can't go to Cooper this time because Cooper is the problem this time, and Naomi and Addison are in the middle of their stupid girl-fight and there's no one else to go to and I really, really need advice so I came to you, which may have been a stupid, stupid idea, not that that's a shock because I am _apparently_ full of stupidity lately. _Apparently_ I don't realize when a monumental, earth-shattering event is taking place right under my nose. _Apparently _I'm not aware enough to see my best friend pulling away from me until all of a sudden, he doesn't need me anymore. Pete! Why doesn't he need me anymore?"

Pete hazarded a guess. "Cooper?"

"I'll tell you why. It's because he's in _love_, can you believe that? Cooper fell in love, _Cooper_, of all people. He just went and fell for someone."

The guessing had gone well the first time, so Pete gave it another shot. "Cooper's in love with you?"

"What? No, he's not in love with me, Pete, I just said he was pulling _away _from me, weren't you listening? Why would you think he was in love with me?"

Pete coughed. "Well, other than the obvious reasons, I figured that would be a pretty likely explanation for you freaking out like this."

"I'm not freaking out. I'm not freaking out! I'm just overworked and overtired and anxious, and I'm overreacting and I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. What obvious reasons?"

"What?"

"You said 'other than the obvious reasons'; what obvious reasons?"

Pete shifted in his chair. "It's just that, you know, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that Cooper's had a little thing for you for a while."

Violet stared. "What are you talking about?"

Pete sighed. Was he really going to have to be the one? Really? "Violet, Cooper's liked you for a really long time. And not just as a friend." Whoa, since when was he a thirteen-year-old girl?

"That's ridiculous. Cooper and I are friends, we're best friends. Or we _were_ best friends, but he's definitely not in love with me."

"Who's he in love with, then?"

"Charlotte King!" Pete choked on his coffee and Violet looked horrified. "Oh _shit_ I shouldn't have told you that. Pete! You can't tell anyone! You can't tell Addison, okay, because then she'll tell Naomi to get her to talk to her again and Naomi will tell Sam and all it'll take is for one of you two to give him a man-grin and he'll never talk to me again!"

"Man-grin?"

"That grin! That grin that one man does at another man when he knows he's getting laid! The grin!"

"I don't think that exists."

"Of course you don't think it exists; you're a _man_. Men don't _know_ they're doing the man-grin, they just do it."

"Did you really come over to talk about man-grins?"

Violet glared at him. Her eyes filled with tears again and she buried her head in the cushion. Oh, shit.

"I don't know what to do." Her voice was muffled.

"You're upset because Cooper didn't tell you he was in love?"

Her head shot up. "Don't say it like that. He used to tell me _everything_. I still tell him everything, or I would if I could get him in one place long enough to listen to me. I just don't know what happened, Pete. He was my best friend and I don't know how I lost him."

"So you're upset because Cooper didn't tell you he was in love, and he won't listen to you."

"He used to talk to me. He used to need me. And even if he doesn't need me anymore, he knows I need him. He abandoned me." Violet's voice cracked and her shoulders shook. Pete decided she needed to be held. He squeezed between her legs and the coffee table and settled himself next to her, wrapping an arm around her back. She sniffed violently. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it," he said again.

Violet drew a shuddering breath. She looked at him. He tried to smile encouragingly. She kept looking at him, and he was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Gently, he pulled back, figuring he'd done enough holding for one night, and that was when her hands grabbed his head and she yanked his face to hers and kissed him.

Pete's eyes widened and he struggled to disentangle his arm from between Violet and the back of the couch. Then Violet's tongue was in his mouth and he decided this needed to stop, now. Pete had not been above suggesting that Violet have sex with him on more than one occasion in the past, but he had been joking… mostly, and anyway, he was not stupid enough to think that this was in any way about him, nor that sex was what Violet needed to be having right at this moment. Finally freeing his arm, he pushed her away by the shoulders and held her at arm's length until she looked at him. She was breathing heavily and he didn't like the look in her eyes: for the first time all night, she looked broken.

"Violet, this isn't what you want."

She buried her face in her hands. "I'm such an idiot."

"No, it's okay. You're not an idiot. You're just upset."

"No, Pete, I'm such an idiot!"

"Violet, it's really okay, alright, it's not like you aren't a pretty desirable person to make out with, I just don't think that—" She was full-on sobbing now, and Pete was starting to suspect that it wasn't because she felt like a fool for kissing him. "Why are you an idiot?" She mumbled something half-intelligible into the couch. Pete caught the word 'Cooper.' He reached over and tugged her head out of the cushions, tilting her face up. "I didn't catch that."

Violet bit her lip. When her words came, they came in a whisper. "I love Cooper."

Pete had no idea how to respond to that. He waited.

"What am I going to do? I love Cooper and Cooper loves _Charlotte._ God, I'm _such an idiot_."

Pete sighed. "Violet, listen. This is what I think you should do. I think you should stay here, because you are not in good shape to drive. This couch folds out; I'll get you a blanket and you can sleep here. And tomorrow you can think about all this—" Pete made a vague gesture. "—and… I think you need to sleep now."

Violet sat up. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Okay."

"Okay. Great. I'll be right back with the blanket."

He was in the hallway when he heard her call out quietly: "Thank you."

Violet woke up with the sun in her eyes and her head pounding in a way that should really only follow a night of heavy drinking. Where the hell was she?

She sat up and noticed a mug of coffee sitting on the table nearby, and it hit her. Pete's house. Pete.

Cooper.

Oh, god.

Violet had no idea what time it was. Pete was probably still asleep. She cringed a little bit when she remembered how she had woken him up and started crying all over him. More than just crying; she cringed again in embarrassment at the memory, and felt profoundly grateful that Pete had handled her histrionics _and_ advances so calmly.

Then again, maybe it was the middle of the day. Maybe it was after noon and Pete was already at the office. What day was it, anyway? Violet looked around for a clock or a calendar and noticed instead a piece of notepad paper she had missed sticking out from under the coffee cup. She pulled it out. _I called in sick for you. You need some time to think. Help yourself to food. See you later. –Pete._

Violet smiled a little. Pete was really a good guy. She was glad she had his friendship. She didn't feel like dwelling too long on the subject of friendship just now, though, so she pushed the thought away and returned to the note. _See you later_. So he was assuming she'd stay. Had she been in such bad condition last night that he didn't think she should go home alone? Violet frowned. It was strange, that _see you later_. Almost like an instruction in disguise; he wasn't giving her permission to stay, he was telling her to.

Her stomach growled and she figured she might as well take him up on his offer of food. She padded into the kitchen and set herself up with a bagel and cream cheese and a glass of juice before going into the bathroom. She made a face when she saw herself in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and her face was pale. She splashed water over her cheeks and combed her hair with her fingers before sighing and turning her attention to her breakfast.

Cooper.

Violet closed her eyes in frustration, but there was no way she was going to be able to keep him out of her head, so she gave in.

Cooper. Cooper, her friend, her ally, her go-to guy, her protector, her entertainer, her listener, her partner. Cooper, who she trusted and who took care of her, Cooper who had always needed her and who she needed more than she had ever realized until it was too late. Cooper, who she loved.

She loved him. She was so, so colossally stupid.

Was Pete right? Had Cooper really loved her? She saw his face: anxious, as he held her head in his hands and examined her for injuries; frustrated, as she babbled giddily about Alan; tortured, as she looked at him vacantly while her brain rattled through strategies for obtaining Alan's bride's urine; weary, when she showed up on his doorstep after being kicked to the curb—again.

Adoring: when he looked right at her and told her she was hard to forget.

Violet felt like she had just been punched in the stomach. My _god_, Cooper was in love with her. Or he had been in love with her, and she had repaid his love and his friendship by obsessing endlessly over Alan and then asking him for a no-strings fuck.

She had to be the stupidest person on the planet.

There was a knock on the door.

Violet jumped and upset her juice. She cursed and threw a dish towel over the spill before going to see who was there. Maybe Pete was checking on her. Maybe it was a still-annoyed Addison using her absence as an excuse to berate her. Maybe it was just UPS and here she was looking like hell.

Violet opened the door, and it wasn't Pete and it wasn't Addison and it wasn't the UPS guy.

"Cooper." Her throat tightened.

"Pete talked to me."

Violet felt her stomach turn inside out with panic. "He did?"

"We need to talk."

She was going to cry. Goddamnit, she was going to cry. She would not let that happen. She would not cry in front of Cooper, not now and not ever again. "Isn't that what I've spent the last week saying?" She wasn't prepared for her hostile tone, and from the way Cooper flinched, he wasn't either.

"I told you the truth."

"Yeah, yesterday. You've been sleeping with that woman for what, a month? More? And you told me _yesterday_. Under duress."

"Violet, please."

"No! Cooper!" she took a deep breath. "Yes, okay, you told me the truth. You're right. So we talked already."

"That's not what I want to talk about. You know that."

She struggled for words. "I can't believe Pete told you."

"Violet."

"He promised—well fine, he didn't promise anything, but I think it's _implied_ that something like that is private."

"Violet."

"I can't believe he let me go on and on and then he just turned around and went running to you."

"Violet."

"Stop saying my name!" she snapped.

"Then you stop talking about Pete and look at me."

"I have a headache. I think I need to go back to bed. I'll see you at the office, okay?" She tried to close the door but he forced it open with his shoulder, and she took an instinctive step backwards at the abrupt invasion of her space.

"No, Violet, listen to me. I'm in love with you."

She gaped at him. "No you're not."

He looked taken aback. "Violet, please, I know this is hard, but it's true. I love you. I've loved you for… years. I've loved you for so long I can't remember what it feels like not to love you. I am in love with you, Violet."

She could feel tears burning her eyes but she willed them away. "You're in love with Charlotte."

"I'm not in love with Charlotte."

"You told me you were."

"I know." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's complicated. Charlotte was an accident and then she was a habit, and I got so used to having this secret, this hidden part of my life that only belonged to me, and I got hooked. I got hooked on the idea of being with someone who knew me and still wanted me. I got hooked on feeing like there was one part of my life that I could control without worrying what anyone else thought about it." He looked down. "Without worrying what you thought about it." There was a silence. Then Cooper raised his eyes and he was looking right at her, and Violet couldn't breathe. "I ended it with Charlotte last night. We were together, and all I could think about was your face. Knowing that you were out there and you knew that I was with Charlotte… it was so wrong. Violet, I told her I'm in love with you. And that I had been for such a long time that I almost forgot, but I was, and I couldn't be with her."

Violet swallowed. "What did she say?"

"She told me I was an imbecile who wasn't worth her time and ranted for a while about how much our practice weirds her out. The word incestuous came up once or twice; I thought it would be better to keep the irony of that statement in light of recent events to myself."

Violet smiled despite herself.

Cooper turned serious again. "Violet, if you're still angry I understand. But I'm here. I'm right here and I promise you I'm not going anywhere. I love you, and it doesn't look like anything I do or you do is ever going to change that, so you should probably get used to the idea."

For the second time in twelve hours, Violet reached up and tugged down the head of the man in front of her and kissed him.

Only this time, it was the right man. This time, he was kissing her back. This time, when her tongue slipped into his mouth and his hands went to her shoulders, she found herself not pushed away, but pulled even closer. This time there was no reason to stop, because it was right, and it was love, and it was Cooper, and they would never ever have to stop again.


End file.
